LANSLIDE. The Automated Management of a Slide Library
| Published date | 01 February 1994 |
| Date | 01 February 1994 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01435129410048990 |
| Pages | 4-6 |
| Author | Ken Harrison |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Background
Lancaster University Library has a collection of
over 80,000 slides covering a wide range of topics
to support teaching and research at the University.
Approximately two-thirds of the collection is
devoted to the fine arts, the remainder covering
subjects as diverse as local history, theatre, land
use, cartography, environmental topics, etc. Slides
are arranged by the Bliss classification system,
the scheme used for the library’s bookstock, and
housed in transparent plastic wallets hung in
filing cabinets. A simple card index originally
provided access by artists’ names and, where
possible, subject terms to complement the
classified arrangement.
In 1987 a decision was made to automate the
slide catalogue, with the aim of providing
comprehensive access to the collection by
keyword searching, with the ability to produce, on
screen or printed, lists by keyword or classmark,
and to produce captions on self-adhesive labels to
fix to the slide mounts. The system needed to be
simple to operate, so that slide library users could
perform their own searches, with password
protection to prevent unauthorized access to
certain options. At that time, no suitable package
appeared to exist and the library developed a
stand-alone management system for slides
running on an IBM-compatible PC using the
PICK operating system. PICK is widely used in
libraries[1], and Lancaster was already committed
to the PICK operating system for the development
of a fully integrated library system[2]. The initial
development of the LANSLIDE system has
previously been reported in Program[3] and
Audiovisual Librarian[4] and will not be covered
in detail in this article. The system has evolved
considerably since 1987, with the expansion of
keyword search options, and the recent
introduction of an optional issue module. The
LANSLIDE system was originally developed for
in-house use at Lancaster, but has since been
made available for sale and is currently used in
five other educational institutions in the UK.
LANSLIDE Features
Slide Catalogue
The catalogue entry for each slide consists of the
following fields:
(1) Accession Number – a unique, computer-
generated numeric identifier for each slide.
(2) Heading – up to 50 characters.
(3) Title – up to 150 characters.
(4) Classmark – up to 15 characters.
(5) Subject – an optional field of up to 200
characters to allow further enrichment of
keyword searching by the addition of extra
subject terms.
The information in fields one to four is printed on
the slide label, and this format is also used when
the results of a keyword or classmark search are
displayed on screen. The layout of the record with
regard to capitalization, etc. can be defined by the
user. Simple rules must be followed to ensure
standardization and correct treatment of initials,
abbreviations, etc. to ensure consistency when
performing keyword searches. A useful
cataloguing feature is the ability to recall all, or
part, of the previous slide cataloguing record, edit
as required, and create a new slide record. This
feature can save a considerable amount of time
when cataloguing sets of slides with common
information.
Keyword Searching
Comprehensive access to information contained
in the LANSLIDE record is provided by keyword
searching. All words and dates in the heading,
title and subject fields (except pre-defined
stopwords such as “and”, “the”, “of”, etc.) are
indexed and can be searched.
LIBRARY MANAGEMENT
4
LANSLIDE
The Automated Management of a Slide Library
Ken Harrison
Library Management, Vol. 15 No. 1, 1994, pp. 4-6
© MCB University Press, 0143-5124
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